Up the Amazon without a Paddle!
November 15, 2016
It’s been nearly a year since I’ve posted on to the blog – the main reason is that it’s primarily a travel blog and I haven’t gone anywhere since our trip to Yelapa last fall.
Three
months seemed like a long time on the last excursion and the successive wars
with the army ants wore Michele and me down.
She has no appetite to return and I figure after nine straight years
visiting Yelapa perhaps a change might be in order.
Since
the main reason for bypassing Yelapa this year was the encounters with the army
ants, scorpions, sea crocodiles and boas, I have decided to try a somewhat
calmer place: The Amazon River.
![]() |
Our Yelapa neighbour |
I tell
Tom the fantastic price I found for the trip and airfare (under $3000.00 for
everything) wouldn’t be around long. If
he wants to go he’ll have to book it immediately. I figure he’ll go home, think twice about it
and that will be the end of it; so I am surprised when he calls later that day
and says ,“I have good news and bad news.”
“What’s
the good news,” I ask.
“I’m
definitely coming,” he replies.
“…and
the bad news?”
“I can’t
be your roommate. Fen (his partner) wants
to come and for some strange reason insists I room with her.”
That is
mixed news for me. Having a known
roommate is better than having an unknown one.
I’d had bad news with several of the others: the last one insisted on
sleeping with the lights on and took pictures of everything he did during the
trip – including candid shots of his bowel movements.”
![]() |
Tom Gliding |
Tom and
Fen booked the trip before they called me so he is somewhat shocked when I tell
him he should visit the travel clinic.
“What
for?” he asks.
“For
what?”
“For
everything: Typhoid, Hepatitis A and B,
Polio, Yellow Fever to name a few. And you’ll
need a prescription for malaria pills and the oral Cholera vaccine”
After
returning from the travel clinic with a swollen arm, Tom confides that if he
knew that he would have needed so many shots he would have booked the trip.
“You
know,” he opines, “Maybe Larry had the right idea. Compared to potentially getting any or all of
those diseases getting your gall bladder out might be a walk in the park.”
What
really terrifies Tom is when the travel clinic doctor tells him there is a chance
of getting Dengue Fever.
“Well
just give me the shot for that. You’ve
given me a shot for everything else.
What’s one more poke in the arm?”
“Sorry,”
she tells him as she sticks another round band aid on his arm, “There is no
vaccine for that. Too bad, ‘cause it’s really nasty.”
Tom went
home and read over the contracts for the trip and flights and is disappointed he
couldn’t find a way out.
“Listen,
Tom,” I tell him. That cruise runs 52 weeks of the year, when you
work out the math, it’s really unlikely you’ll ever get Dengue Fever. I only
know one guy who got it and he survived
- barely” Something worse is more likely
to get you: things that there are no vaccines for.”
“Like what?”
“Like what?”
![]() |
The dreaded Candiru |
At this point Tom has stuck his fingers in his
ears and is singing “La la la la” as loud as he can , so I don’t have the heart
to tell him about the Candiru – a small spiny fish famous for launching
themselves up the urethra of anyone foolish enough to pee in the river. If you
want to have nightmares, check out this list of the 10 most terrifyingcreatures of the Amazon River - but
don’t send it to Tom.
I also didn’t
mention to him a similar boat to ours blew up and sank last July - or a recent
string of pirate attacks. But hey, the
good news is they seem to only attack “luxury” cruises, so I guess we don’t
have to worry and things have been relatively calm since July. Besides, Tom
doesn’t have to worry about pirates, I have had experience with pirates on one
of my previous trips to Thailand where the cook and I fended off pirates with a
large cast iron frying pan.
![]() |
Recent river boat sinking |
Actually
the trip sounds like fun, and completely safe (I think). I told Tom he has more chance of getting
Dengue fever than the boat blowing up under him or being attacked by pirates in
the middle of the night.
We will arrive in Lima this Saturday and take
a plane the next day to Iquitos in the jungle to get on board our GAdventures River Boat where
we spend the next week cruising up and down the upper reaches of the Amazon
River. Then it’s back to Lima for a few days of R&R and back home. Total time gone just 14 days – although to
Tom it might seem like a lifetime.
Hopefully
there’s some Wi-Fi along the way so I can keep you informed of our adventures or
if you have to start a crowdfunding to raise our ransom.
If you
want to learn more about the cruise here’s the link to our itinerary.
No comments:
Post a Comment